According to Michael Pollan's recent NYTs article, You Are What You Grow, the US government, via the Farm Bill, subsidizes the growing of, or as Pollan says, "promotes the overproduction of", 5 crops - corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and cotton - "to the tune of some $25 billion a year."

Now, this is just a hypothetical case, but let's suppose that the Safe Food Act, via its increased funding for research into hazardous food ingredients, finds an association between consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and metabolic syndrome (obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood lipids, heart disease). And let's say that, as a result, consumption of HFCS in this country wanes. What would happen to that multi-billion-dollar subsidy for corn?